Can Capitalism Survive?

Benjamin A. Rogge

Publication Year: 2012

Benjamin A. Rogge—late Distinguished Professor of Political Economy at Wabash College—was a representative of that most unusual species: economists who speak and write in clear English. He forsakes professional jargon for clarity and logic—and can even be downright funny. The nineteen essays in this volume explore the philosophy of freedom, the nature of economics, the business system, labor markets, money and inflation, the problems of cities, education, and what must be done to ensure the survival of free institutions and capitalism.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Foreword

One of the signs of advancing age in the American
college professor is a tendency for him to write
less and publish more. This seeming paradox is easily
explained by the phenomenon of Collected Works, that
is, by what on television...

Part I

Chapter 1

These words were written in 1942 by Joseph Schumpeter,
Austrian-born Harvard social scientist, in his
prophetic work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.
Inasmuch as I intend to build my comments around
this work, it might be appropriate for me to reinforce
my own judgment of Schumpeter's...

Part II

Chapter 1

My economic philosophy is here offered with full
knowledge that it is not generally accepted as
the right one. On the contrary, my brand of economics
has now become Brand X, the one that is never selected
as the whitest by the...

Chapter 2

I intend to spend the next seventeen minutes answering
a question that a disappointingly small number
of people even bother to ask. The question is this: Just
what is Ben Rogge's social philosophy? or to put it
the way a few who have heard me speak have put it:
"Rogge, just what kind of a nut are you?" This way of
putting it, although accurate...

Chapter 3

I n some 63 .7 percent of all interviews in my office,
the person across the desk is there to tell me who's
to blame. And in 99.6 percent of the cases where that is
the question, the answer is the same: He isn't.
Now if these were just simple cases of prevarication,
we could all shake our heads at the loss of the old Yes-father-
I-chopped-down..

Chapter 4

I n these comments I offer three morality tales for
your guidance, with the moral to be found in each
tailored to the needs of my pre-existing biases. My
first and third stories are laid in that romantic region,
Posey County in Indiana's pocket country-once the
haunt of Ohio River pirates and moonshiners. My second
is laid in the...

Part III

I n this part on the nature of economics, pride of
place goes naturally to the paper on Adam Smith,
the Father of Economics. This paper was first presented
to an audience at Hillsdale College. In it, I make no
attempt to conceal my opinion that Adam Smith is still
the best of all...

Chapter 1

"To prohibit a great people [the American colonials]
... from making all that they can of every part
of their own produce, or from employing their [capital]
and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous
to themselves, is a manifest violation of the
most sacred rights...

Chapter 2

I wish to begin my discussion with some questions.
What can we find in the Bible on the ethical rightness
of the statement that two plus two equals four?
What do the Papal Encyclicals tell us of the justice of
Boyle's Law, that the volume of an ideal gas varies
inversely with its pressure...

Chapter 3

So that you will not be left in suspense, let me tell
you immediately that the amount of subversion
that takes place in college economics courses is probably
much less than you may have imagined. The
reasons for this are many; two of the most important
are as follows :
( 1 ) In general, the level of teaching in economics
(and particularly in the...

Part IV

The two papers in this section deal with selected
topics in the general area of "the business system,"
which occupies center stage in the drama of capitalist
economics.
"Profits" was presented to a group of businessmen
and clergy brought together by the National Association
of Manufacturers. The meeting site was Bermuda,
and the clergymen and professors...

Chapter 1

"What has happened to profits?" My answer to that
question is as follows: Profits have gone down.
For those who think this answer inadequate, I can add
the following: Profits have also been overestimated,
overstated, overtaxed, underrated and misunderstood!
Are there any questions?
Of course there...

Chapter 2

I should like to begin with a paragraph from an article
in a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal.
The headlines read as follows: "Scorning business.
More college students shun corporate jobs, choose
other fields. Teaching, Peace Corps lure Harvard grads:
company hiring quotas...

Part V

This paper was presented at a meeting of the Midwest
Economics Association in 1957. It was later
printed in Business Topics, a journal published by the
School of Business at Michigan State University. As
you will see, its message...

Chapter 1

I n the paragraphs to follow you will find me critical
of both the goals and techniques of trade unionism.
Nor can I soften this position by announcing that, in
spite of my sharp words, I am basically pro-union. I
am not for "good" but opposed to "bad" (e.g., racketcontrolled)
trade unionism.....

Part VI

I n this section, I deal with that most ubiquitous of
all diseases of economic life: inflation. As Lenin
predicted, it is fast becoming the instrument of the
disintegrating process in capitalist economies-though
its ravages are equally visible in the socialist economies
of the world.
The first paper is one version of a long-runeconomic-
outlook speech...

Chapter 1

The most probable course of events in the American
economy in the next ten to fifteen years is the following:
( 1) continuing, in fact, accelerating inflation;
(2) no major depression, but occasional periods of
reduced real output (and hence employment); ( 3)
off-and-on price and...

Chapter 2

The question before the house is whether inflation is
caused, in whole or in part, by the exercise of
private market power in the economy. So as to relieve
what little suspense there may be, let me hasten to say
that the answer to this question is "No." Inflation is
not produced by the assistant manager of the A&P
store who marks...

Part VII

The following paper was prepared in response to an
invitation in 1972 from the Center for Constructive
Alternatives at Hillsdale College to be one of the
speakers in a seminar on the general topic, "Recycling
the Cities: Alternatives to Decay." I brought to the
task little more than...

Chapter 1

I n the paragraphs to follow you will find me critical
of most of the work now being done on the nature
of the urban crisis and equally critical of the public
policies proposed to ease that crisis. To compound my
sin, I offer no alternative scheme by which the New
Jerusalem can be...

Part VIII

I served as academic dean of Wabash College from
1956 through August 1964. The college somehow
survived the pervasive aura of disorganization that
marks my administrative style and, in the meantime,
I came under the necessity of doing some concentrated
thinking on various issues...

Chapter 1

The purpose of this study is to explore certain current
and expected problems in the financing of
higher education in the United States. In particular, it
will be directed to an evaluation of one method of
solving these problems: the method of full-cost pricing
of the services of higher...

Chapter 2

There is one topic to which I can address myself
that should be relevant to your lives and about
which I have a very modest amount of specialized,
personal knowledge. Most (perhaps all) of you are
going on to college. What can you reasonably expect
from your college...

Part IX

I f you have stuck with me up to this point, you may
be weary of one paragraph of despair after another,
of one diagnosis after another of the ailments of
present-day capitalism. If you share, in whole or in
part, my conviction that capitalism is the only economic
system consistent...

Chapter 1

The question before this house is not whether the
survival of capitalism is in doubt (this is admitted).
The question for us, as it was for Lenin at an earlier
time, is, What to do? His concern was how best to
hasten the collapse of capitalism; our concern is how
to postpone or ward...

Chapter 2

By the time this is in print, the election will be over
and conservatism as a potent political force will
be dead. A fine man will have suffered a humiliating
defeat, and the liberals in his party will be planning a
ruthless purge of all those who were closely associated
with his candidacy. The...

Chapter 3

The question before us is this: Has the Foundation
for Economic Education, in its first twenty-five
years, succeeded in its mission? Most speakers on such
occasions are capable of supplying only one answer to
such a question. Tonight, at no extra cost to you, I
intend to give you...

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